snark: a (well-deserved) attitude of mocking irreverence and sarcasm

August 02, 2019

I thought I couldn't get any more irritated at the Salem City Council and City officials, and I was plenty mad before, but now I'm way more pissed off.

I just learned that those officials have signed a contract with the Salem Alliance Church to lease a building owned by the church for a temporary public library, even though City Council rules allow for reconsideration of any council decision at the next meeting, which is August 12.

The City Council voted to approve the lease on a 6-1 vote at the July 22 council meeting. But this was a hugely controversial issue. And two councilors were absent, Tom Andersen and Sally Cook. Jackie Leung was the sole sane vote in opposition to this crazy idea.

There are alternative locations to house a temporary library, such as Liberty Plaza, which was one of the top three choices of the Library Renovation Subcommittee. Virtually everybody who submitted written or verbal testimony to the City Council was against using the church-owned Capital Press building.

And people have been contacting the Mayor and city councilors urging that the City Council reconsider approval of the Salem Alliance Church lease agreement at the council's next meeting on August 12. Reconsideration is allowed by a City Council rule.

Yet a little while ago I learned that City staff went ahead and signed the Salem Alliance Church contract, thereby taking away the ability for this issue to be reconsidered by the City Council -- essentially screaming a loud Screw you! at supporters of LGBTQ rights in Salem.

Jackie Leung, the sole no vote on the use of Salem Alliance Church property for the temporary Library, kindly responded to my questions about whether anything could be done at this point. She said:

"Because I voted no, I am not able to ask for a reconsideration. One of the councilors, such as Councilor Kaser, who voted yes, will need to call it up. I can issue a plea at the council meeting for reconsideration, though no one may do so.

It also depends on if city council already signed a lease with SAC. If it has already been signed, I am afraid that there is no way to stop it from moving forward. As a frequent library user, it also concerns me about the use of the Capitol Press and what it means to our community.

Thank you for your email. Please continue reaching out to Councilor Kaser. Perhaps she will be willing to request a reconsideration if it is not too late."

Then I found out that the lease has been already signed. But before that, I contacted Councilor Cara Kaser (Ward 1, in which I live). Here is what she wrote:

"I hope you either watched live or the recording of City Council meeting when this issue was discussed. Councilor Chris Hoy summed up my position on this issue exactly. If you didn’t get a chance to watch Councilor Hoy’s remarks, I hope that you will.

The Library sub-committee charged with finding a temporary build to house the library collection recommended this location after going through several other properties. For one reason and another, the former Capital Press building was the only feasible site to relocate the library and met the sub-committee’s criteria for relocation.

The building is owned by a religious organization but the building itself is not a religious building (i.e. it’s not a church, sanctuary, chapel, etc.). Also, the building will be under lease and operated by the City, and not by a religious organization.

The City will follow it’s own ordinances and codes of conduct while the library is at this temporary location, just as it follows rules now at the permanent library site. Because of this, I believe that the temporary location for the library will be a welcoming and accepting place for all members of our community, just like our permanent library location is now."

Since I already knew that the property was owned by SAC and not a "religious" building, the only thing to take away from Councilor Kaser's comment is that her position was the same as Hoy's.

And Hoy's pertinent comment was that basically "if we (the City) scrutinizes all entities that the City does business with, it is a slippery slope"

...And my comment regarding that is that if the City does NOT look at the policies of entities, then THAT is the real slippery slope.

Would the City do business with an entity with an avowed white nationalist agenda? Would the City do business with an entity that was against marriage between different races? I think not.

So why are LGBTQIA people, their friends, allies, and loved ones being thrown under the bus? Answer that please, "progressive" council members.

Great question.

Councilors Hoy, Kaser, and Ausec, each of whom claims to be progressive, along with Mayor Bennett and councilors Lewis and Nanke, all knew full well that the Human Rights Commission and LGBTQ community in Salem understood that the temporary library was going to be operated by City staff, not by the church.

That was irrelevant to supporters of LGBTQ rights. Which makes what Councilor Kaser said above, and what Councilor Hoy said at the July 22 council meeting, also irrelevant.

What mattered is what Stephens said: the Salem Alliance Church opposes LGBTQ rights.

Yet not only does the City of Salem see no problem with paying almost $500,000 to the Salem Alliance Church to house a temporary library that won't be used by members of the LGBTQ community and their supporters, it rushed ahead with signing the lease contract in order to prevent public opinion from forcing a reconsideration vote at the August 12 council meeting.

UPDATE: I just realized that there's a decent chance one or more of the six members of the City Council who voted to go ahead with leasing the church owned library for a temporary library pressed City staff to sign the Salem Alliance Church lease before the next council meeting to avoid the spectacle of a reconsideration request being discussed at the meeting.

Also, here's a cogent comment from ardent library supporter Jim Scheppke that he left on a Facebook page where I shared this blog post:

"I agree with Brian that the City staff should have waited until after the August 12th meeting to sign the lease to allow Councilors Cook and Andersen to weigh in on this issue on behalf of their constituents. We heard at the last meeting from substitute Councilor Evan White that Councilor Cook was opposed to leasing the church property. I would not be surprised to learn that Councilor Andersen is also opposed.

There was very little discussion of the issue at the last meeting because it came at the end of a long meeting and the Councilors were clearly rushing through the end of the agenda as they often do. A decision that affects a large portion of the community (LGBTQ citizens and their friends, family and supporters and others who care deeply about human rights) should not be railroaded. I also disagree that the church building was the only viable choice. I think that's false. It was the cheapest choice."

Disgusting. Outrageous. Shameful. And those are the least profane words that spring to mind.

Yesterday I paid $476.80 to the City of Salem for the required fee to get public records related to the selection of the church-owned Capital Press building for a temporary library.

I submitted the public records request because I figured there was a good chance I'd get the documents prior to the August 12 City Council meeting where a reconsideration might have been discussed.

I figured wrong, failing to anticipate that City officials would forestall reconsideration by rushing ahead with signing the contract, even though the library won't start moving into a temporary location until December.

However, I'm still glad that I'm getting the documents and emails, because I believe the public needs to understand as clearly as possible how this horrible choice of the Capital Press building happened.

May 24, 2018

A few days ago I blogged about newly-elected city councilor Jackie Leung's effort to fulfill a campaign promise by attempting to get the Salem City Council to reconsider its decision to form a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District.

The Reimbursement District would raise money to pay for road improvements by collecting between about $4,000 and $10,000 from lot owners in the south Salem area when a home is built on their property.

It's unclear whether the City Council will undertake a reconsideration of the Reimbursement District, which has to be done at next Tuesday's council meeting, because an agenda item implements the decision that passed on a 5-4 vote on May 14.

One of the five council members who voted for the Reimbursement District would have to make a motion to reconsider the vote: Mayor Chuck Bennett, or councilors Brad Nanke, Sally Cook, Steve McCoid, and Chris Hoy.

After residents in the Creekside neighborhood began emailing City officials, urging that the Reimbursement District be reconsidered and overturned, they got this response from Tami Carpenter, the City Manager's Executive Assistant.

Thank you for your email to the City Council. We understand your concern regarding the possible closure and development of Creekside Golf Course. This however, is a private property matter that, as you know, has been playing out in the courts.

The City Council does not have authority to stop the golf course owners from closing the facility. If the golf course is redeveloped, it will then have to meet current development standards and be subject to administrative and possible City Council reviews, as warranted.

The issue of funding construction of Lone Oak Road extension with a reimbursement district has been comingled with the possible closure of the golf course. The City Council’s decision has no bearing on the future of the golf course. The decision simply states that if—and only if—the golf course is redeveloped then a fee will be assessed on the new lots to pay for a portion of the street construction. The fee will also be assessed on new subdivision developments south of Jory Creek.

Additional funding from other development fees has also been allocated to the project. The existing Creekside owners are not subject to the fee, nor are any existing Salem residents subject to the fee or assessment for this project. Thank you again for your email,

Since I've followed this issue closely, a Creekside resident contacted me and asked if I'd prepare a reply that could be posted on the Creekside NextDoor site. Here's what I wrote and sent to the resident yesterday.

The City Manager’s Executive Assistant has claimed that approval of the Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District “has no bearing on the future of the golf course.”

Well, this requires a belief that City officials don’t care one way or the other whether the golf course property becomes a housing development. But in fact, almost a third of the money expected to be raised by the Reimbursement District (29%) comes from an assumption that 210 lots on what is now the Creekside golf course will be developed as home sites, thereby paying $1,935,000 into the Reimbursement District.

City officials shouldn’t have a vested interest in whether the golf course becomes a subdivision. However, they do — even though a final decision on this issue awaits a legal ruling.

The City of Salem is assuming that 210 lots will be developed on the golf course property prior to the legal ruling, prior to plans being submitted for a subdivision, prior to public hearings on what sort of development, if any, is suitable for an area prone to flooding,

Yet the City Manager’s office would have us believe that City officials are completely neutral on the question of what happens to the golf course property, notwithstanding the fact that the Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District is dependent on 210 lots being developed on the property in order to raise sufficient funds to construct road improvements.

Further, after initially saying that money for those improvements could be raised through a future citywide Streets and Bridges bond should sufficient money be lacking in the Reimbursement District fund, City officials now state that this option is off the table.

This makes development of the golf course into a 210 lot subdivision essential if a bridge over Jory Creek and the northern extension of Lone Oak Road are to be built, since City officials have shown no interest in making the Creekside developer foot the bill.

So it sure seems like the City of Salem has already come to a premature conclusion that development of the golf course into a subdivision needs to happen, thereby putting a thumb on the scale of impartiality that citizens should expect of public officials.

Today I realized that I wanted to share some arguments with City officials about why the Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District is a bad idea. This is the message that went to members of the City Council and key City of Salem staff.

Mayor Bennett and city councilors, I realize that you probably think that everything that could be said about the Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District already has been said.

Actually, I agree with you.

Before the Memorial Day weekend arrives, I simply want to share a couple of things that have been said about the Reimbursement District that bear on the question of whether the City Council should reconsider, once again, it’s approval of the District

These two items are a strong argument in favor of reconsidering and revoking the Reimbursement District, so I wanted to bring them to your attention.

(1) At the May 14 City Council meeting, Councilor Sally Cook asked what the process would be for funding Lone Oak Road if the Reimbursement District didn’t exist. Public Works Director Peter Fernandez gave this response:

“We probably would see the southern leg built, because there are a couple of subdivisions coming in that, you know, need to put pieces of it in, and we could probably make that happen.

We would struggle financially with getting the bridge [over Jory Creek] built. SDC’s [System Development Charges] would be applied, but there wouldn’t be any leverage, so you see the math that Mr. Davis showed you. We’d be waiting a long time for the bridge, but you’d probably get the southern leg built.”

Here’s a screenshot of a slide that shows the southern leg, which passes right by one of the subdivisions, and apparently through the west side of the other subdivision. So it certainly does seem that those subdivisions would build the southern extension of Lone Oak Road even if the Reimbursement District didn’t exist.

(2) Regarding the bridge and northern extension of Lone Oak Road, here’s the flawed logic of the Reimbursement District. A large share of the funds expected to be raised by the Reimbursement District, 29%, are to come from the development of 210 lots on what is now the Creekside golf course.

Yet if the golf course is developed, the South Gateway Neighborhood Association pointed out in a letter to the City Council that it would make much more sense if Lone Oak Road were to run through the flat land of the golf course property, which wouldn’t require building a bridge, and the northern extension could be made the responsibility of the Creekside developer.

Here’s a screenshot of a portion of the SGNA letter. It was written when City staff were saying that the northern extension likely would be part of a future Streets and Bridges bond, which now is off the table according to staff:

Here’s an image of how Lone Oak Road could be realigned to run through what is now the golf course property.

So if the golf course is converted to a subdivision, there wouldn’t be a need for a Reimbursement District to fund a bridge and northern extension of Lone Oak Road, because a much less expensive extension could be built on the west side of the golf course property, with the cost paid by the Creekside developer and SDCs.

And if the property remains a golf course, almost certainly there won’t be enough money in the Reimbursement District to fund the $5.6 million cost of a bridge over Jory Creek and the northern extension of Lone Oak Road, since $1,935,000 would never accrue to the District from 210 lots in a subdivision constructed on the golf course property.

In summary, then:

City staff have said that the southern extension of Lone Oak Road likely would be built if there wasn’t a Reimbursement District. And the northern extension likely only could be built if the golf course becomes a subdivision, in which case it would make much more sense to run Lone Oak Road through the flat golf course property, as SGNA advises, thereby eliminating the need for a Reimbursement District for the bridge and northern leg.

May 22, 2018

Fresh off her upset victory in the Ward 4 City Council race, Jackie Leung is making good on her campaign promise to work hard on preserving open space in the Creekside neighborhood.

She recognizes that unfettered development can't be allowed to diminish the quality of life for Salem residents. So Leung is asking the City Council to reconsider and overturn its recent narrow 5-4 approval of a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District.

The Reimbursement District collects between $4,000 and $10,000 from lot owners in the south Salem area when a home is built on their property, then gives that money to developers to reimburse them for constructing improvements to Lone Oak Road.

There's some big problems with this plan.

Here's why people in Salem should support fairness by emailing the City Council at [email protected] to urge them to reconsider and overturn the Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District at next Monday's May 29 council meeting.

(1) City officials assume the Creekside golf course will become a subdivision. Even though the Creekside Homeowners Association is appealing a legal decision that allowed developers Larry Tokarski and Terry Kelly to build a subdivision on the golf course property, the Reimbursement District assumes that 210 homes will be built on that property.

It isn't fair for the City of Salem to tilt the scale in favor of developers when people in the Creekside neighborhood are doing their best to preserve the open space that they consider was promised to remain in perpetuity when they bought homes there.

(2) Greenspace is valuable to everybody in Salem. There needs to be a vigorous community discussion about the best use of the Creekside golf course property, should it ever be converted from a golf course. Developers shouldn’t be able to get their way just because they seek to make money from a subdivision development.

Quality of life for Salem residents has to be considered in every development decision. As noted above, the Reimbursement District simply takes for granted that the golf course property will become a subdivision. This ignores flooding risks for downstream homes and businesses by developing that property.

(3) Developers shouldn't get preferential treatment from City officials. As I noted in a recent post about the Reimbursement District, Public Works Director Peter Fernandez said at a City Council meeting that likely the southern extension of Lone Oak Road would be built by developers of two subdivisions in that area even if a Reimbursement District wasn't formed to pay them back.

Government shouldn't do what the private sector already plans to do. Lot owners in south Salem shouldn't have to pay an extra $4,000 to $10,000 when they build a home on their property so real estate developers get a free ride on building road improvements that they would have to construct anyway.

Here's a message Jackie Leung is releasing today which echoes the points made above:

Subject: Email City Council to Save Creekside Golf Course

Dear Creekside Neighbors,

Please join me in writing an email to the Salem City Council ([email protected]) before they meet again on May 29, 2018. Under City Council rules, any councilor who voted for the May 14, 2018 motion can ask that it be reconsidered at the next meeting. The email below is an initial step in our effort to get the City Council on the side of the Creekside community.

If the cloud of the Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District is removed from our golf course on May 29, it will be easier to use the Salem Comprehensive Plan to protect our outdoor recreation and open space. In addition, we can review options for a ballot measure or conservation easement to protect the golf course as permanent green space for south Salem.

Please consider writing an email or letter to the City Council before May 29. This message was sent only to a small list of Creekside residents, so please reach out to others and encourage them to email the City Council.

I am thankful for Creekside's support for my campaign for City Council. I look forward to working together over the next four years to protect the Creekside golf course.

May 17, 2018

Like I said last Tuesday on election night, Jackie Leung's 53%-46% victory over Steve McCoid in the Ward 4 City Council race warms my progressive heart.

Though I used the word "apparent" in that post, Leung has a 237 vote lead over McCoid, which is very unlikely to be erased even though some lingering votes may remain to be counted.

There are lessons to be learned from political newcomer Leung's upset victory over an incumbent city councilor, especially when Micki Varney's 48%-52% loss to incumbent Councilor Jim Lewis in the Ward 8 race is considered.

So here's my five takeaways from these election results, with a focus on Leung's victory.

(The Andersen/Hoy endorsements irked me, since Andersen and Hoy are part of the current five-member progressive council majority, yet they endorsed McCoid, who strikes me as a conservative doing his best to look like a moderate.)

Leung listed no endorsements on her Voter's Pamphlet statement, yet she beat McCoid. I don't think endorsements matter much anymore, since many, if not most, voters have a decidedly cynical view toward both politicians and the special interests who attempt to influence elections. In fact...

(2) Independence likely was an asset in the Ward 4 race. Progressive Salem decided to stay out of the Leung-McCoid battle, even though Jackie Leung clearly is more liberal than McCoid. In early March I criticized Progressive Salem for not endorsing Leung, but now I believe that the absence of that endorsement helped Leung more than it hurt her.

Both Ward 4 and Ward 8 are swing districts.

Since Salem as a whole leans decidedly liberal, this means that those wards are the most conservative in this town. Up until this election, Progressive Salem only got involved in City Council races in liberal-leaning wards, which led to successes -- the election of Tom Andersen, Sally Cook, Cara Kaser, Matt Ausec, and Chris Hoy.

But the Progressive Salem game plan didn't work in Ward 8. It's hard to say whether Micki Varney would have done better without her Progressive Salem endorsement. I tend to think that she would have, so long as volunteers enlisted by Progressive Salem would still have turned out for her. I say this because...

(3) Tribalism appears to be wearing thin, especially in local races. In these Trumpian times, citizens are increasingly polarized on national and state levels into "tribes" that rarely interact in a productive manner, even to seek common ground. I've advocated a Mingling of the Tribes effort in Salem to help head divisiveness, but this has garnered exactly zero interest from anybody but myself, and at times even I think it's a poor idea.

We all like to belong. To something.

So it's Pollyannish to think that people are going to surrender their cherished political identities. But the next best thing is to lay those identities aside as much as possible. After all, during most of our waking hours, we don't think "I'm a progressive" or "I'm a conservative." We're simply human beings trying to enjoy and deal with life as best we can.

The Salem Chamber of Commerce PAC stayed out of city council races this time around, and Jim Lewis still won (admittedly with support from other right-leaning PACs). Progressive Salem chose to only get involved with the Ward 8 race, which the more liberal candidate lost. Leung, so far as I know, didn't emphasize her political leaning much, if at all.

Being a newcomer to politics, I suspect that Ward 4 voters found this refreshing. Now, I'm not suggesting that Progressive Salem should shut down. Quite the opposite, in fact. I want Progressive Salem, which I'm a member of, to become a stronger force in this town by changing its ways a bit. Which gets me to...

(4) Hyper-local issues drive local elections. In Ward 4, Jackie Leung made the Creekside golf course a big part of her campaign. Most people in the Creekside area don't want to see the golf course turned into a 210-lot subdivision, which is the goal of the Creekside developer.

McCoid, being associated with developer interests, including his support for a Lone Oak Road Reimbursement District that the South Gateway Neighborhood Association opposed, almost certainly lost votes because of this.

In Ward 8, by contrast, the central campaign issue was a Third Bridge.

Varney was attacked by Lewis for not supporting the current Third Bridge plan, even though Varney said she supports another bridge, just not the Salem River Crossing version. Leung opposed a Third Bridge, and this probably didn't matter much one way or the other, because many fewer Ward 4 voters cared about that issue, compared to Ward 8 voters.

Now, I give myself credit (one of my favorite jobs) for keeping Creekside and Lone Oak Road issues in the public spotlight. I blogged frequently about this, reporting on City Council meetings where the Reimbursement District was discussed in the absence of any Statesman Journal coverage of this issue. A front page Salem Weekly story I wrote garnered more attention.

So hyper-local issues (meaning, those that don't pertain to Salem as a whole) matter a lot in City Council elections.

Problem is, with the steadily shrinking local Statesman Journal reporting, I feel that progressive voices in Salem need to do a better job of connecting the dots between (1) electing liberal-leaning people to the City Council, and (2) making both neighborhoods and Salem as a whole more livable and vibrant via Council decisions.

Thus I'd like to see Progressive Salem become a lot more active year-round on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other social media. The group should be constantly keeping people in Salem informed about hot issues being faced by the City Council, and how the most progressive councilors are dealing with those issues.

For example, it shouldn't be left to a candidate like Micki Varney to defend Third Bridge policies during her campaign.

The public needs to be continuously informed about why a billion dollar new bridge is a bad idea, and how the progressive members of the City Council are trying to make better ideas happen. Again, year-round, not just every two or four years when a Council seat is up for grabs.

In short, I'd like to see Progressive Salem act more like a political party, minus most of the politics.

The Democratic Party of Oregon frequently fills my Twitter feed with news on various topics, as do other liberal groups. By contrast, Progressive Salem isn't active at all on social media. It needs to bring issues before the public eye much more vigorously, pointing out how the councilors it helped elect are benefiting citizens -- again, not just at election time, but constantly.

(5) In politics, anything can happen. There isn't a whole lot for me to say about this takeaway, because it is so obvious. Not many people thought Jackie Leung had a good chance of beating Steve McCoid. But she did.

As noted above, I now don't believe that it would have been helpful to Leung if Progressive Salem had endorsed her. But it still bothers me that the Progressive Salem board decided to sit out the Ward 4 race for the wrong reason.

Namely, not from a strategic decision to let a good candidate stress her independence, but seemingly because several progressive City Councilors (Andersen and Hoy) decided early on that they'd be fine with McCoid remaining on the council. I've heard that the Progressive Salem board chose to ignore the Ward 4 race long before the candidate filing deadline.

This makes no sense.

It was a bad decision by the Progressive Salem board. In the future, I'm hopeful that the membership of Progressive Salem will have a say in how the organization is managed. Currently us members basically only come to meetings where we're told about volunteer needs/opportuntities for upcoming campaigns, with no chance to weigh in on Progressive Salem policy issues.

Many minds often can make better decisions than a few minds. Not always, but often. Given the nature of politics, I believe Progressive Salem would be well served by involving its members more often, and more deeply, in policy issues.

May 15, 2018

Time for me to say "I told you so!" to those progressives who either thought Jackie Leung couldn't best Steve McCoid in the Ward 4 Salem City Council race, or felt that that McCoid was an acceptable moderate, so endorsed him even though Leung was by far the better candidate.

Have a look, Councilors Tom Andersen and Chris Hoy, both of whom endorsed McCoid. Have a look, board members of Progressive Salem, who ignored requests to support the more liberal candidate in the Ward 4 race.

Now, a 184 vote lead in Ward 4 likely will hold up. But it might not. So I'm only proclaiming "I told you so" with 95% of my political voice, since it's possible that the final vote could favor McCoid.

It just griped me that so few progressive political types in Salem saw in Jackie Leung what I and so many others saw: a woman of color who is smart, cool and collected, with a great family and an appealing vision for Salem.

Let this be a lesson to those who thought Leung couldn't win.

It is way better to back someone who has excellent progressive credentials, and have that person lose, than to back a moderate like McCoid just because... I don't know why, maybe because he's a colleague on the City Council?

The endorsements from Andersen and Hoy that McCoid featured in his campaign irked me. I'll be honest about that.

I like Councilors Tom Andersen and Chris Hoy a lot. I respect their right to endorse McCoid. I just wish they had taken a closer look at Jackie Leung before throwing their political weight in McCoid's direction.

And I can't resist saying to Andersen, how good a friend of yours is Steve McCoid if he can't even spell your last name correctly?